Tesla switches gears, plans to keep Roadster till 2012
By Darren Murph 
posted March 14th 2010 5:08AM
posted March 14th 2010 5:08AM
posted March 14th 2010 5:08AM
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Tesla. Oh how I love you!
@Soothesayer
I live in the silicon valley and have driven behind one in person...and I have to say...i think it looks better on my computer screen. I would say a porsche 911 looks much more impressive. The tesla looks something in between an exige and a honda s2k.
@questionexclamation Ha, I see where your coming from. Personally I find the fuctionality of the car more appealing than the looks.
@Soothesayer
Okay okay. It runs on electricity I get why people reading engadget would think this is a cool "electronic apparatus". But look. Its a car okay? And in the real world. People who have 100k to spend on cars, don't really care about saving the earth as long as it is not spewing out CFC's who cares?
with that said you're still probably saying...that doesn't have to do anything with functionality. Its an all electric car that does 0-60 in like..3.5 seconds or something. WELL! I've got news for you. The car is incredibly heavy with all those batteries through corners it cannot beat the lotus exige. AND! with its "impressive" range claim, the tesla lasts for like..half an hour until its out of juice.
Its not economical because its 100k, it's fast in the straights but have terrible handling in the corners and! it looks like an s2k with a body kit.
You would have just as much fun just buying a mazda miata if you can get over the fact that people call it a gay man's car its a real sports car.
AND ANYWAY! just seeing 1 tesla among the GT-R's, Maserati's, Lamborghinis, Ferarri's and the many Porsche's really says something. People...just don't want the hassle of new technology. Its not worth it and it definitely doesn't look it. But i guess that's subjective.
that car is pure sex
@first name Greatest
Yep Lotus design a beautiful sports car.
Sex on the front hood I can dig it
If I ever buy a car, it will be a Tesla.
@Brent1700
If I ever get 100,000 dollars, I'd love a Tesla...
Man you aim high what about a pruis
I actually found a really good condition Telsa Roadster near by my house for sale for around 30 to 40 thousand I think....not exactly sure, but it was deff under 65 thousand....Just might buy the baby.............soon, The car is sooooo hard to resist!
@abedinthehouse
Go buy that car!! Then write a review of it and send it to Engadget (or better yet loan it to them so they can test it!). Then again, you have to thoroughly check the car out and make sure you can afford it. I think there are less than 1000 in the world....
Good luck
@abedinthehouse
Check the fine print to make sure it doesn't say "Batteries not included!"
@edf
lmaoo! Think ima take it for a test drive for about a few hours to see how the battery lasts first, but of corse I need that money first...and if I do, Ill be sure to send a review.
@abedinthehouse
Keep us engageters in the loop. Thanks
You got to be kidding me guys!! Would you really choose a tesla instead of a Ford mustang GT500 convertible (which btw costs only 50k)?
@Andrejavus It's a matter of yelling "I'm saving the planet" vs. causing pants to be shat on your daily commute. Personally, I'd rather drive a CTS-V....
@Andrejavus
I'm pretty sure the Tesla would beat the GT in cornering and acceleration, so yes, I would.
@r34p3r
plus- it's still a mustang... Who wants to drive a mustang when they can drive a corvette?? Also, who want to drive a mustang??
@CrossCheck
Electricity comes from dirty power plants so how is a Tesla saving the planet ? The whole point of a Prius is it's supposed to be very frugal with fuel the Tesla pound for pound is MORE polluting than a petrol car since electricity is much more inefficient to generate and distribute.
Not really true. Aside from the fact that electricity can be generated, depending on the region of the country, by solar, wind or nuclear, pollution is much easier to control if it had a single point of origin rather than 300 million points. And anyway, if you're really an enviro and you think electricity is so bad, why are you on a PC goofing off on a site like Engadget?
@think before you react
I think so too, the corvette is much better car.
And for electric cars I rather have the Fisker Karma it looks better and has more torque then a Bugatti Veyron.
@fourthletter
You are so ignorant about electric power generation that you should never post again on the subject. Power generated from a plant is 80% efficient. Most gas engines, hybrid or not, are only 35%. Plus some powerplant produce very little pollutants, like wind generation, hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear. To put it simply, the amount of pollutants put off by a powerplant is no where near the amount that it would take a Toyota prius to generate the same amount of power.
@69camaroSS
And yet you seem so ignorant of how power is generated in the US I wonder why you are bothering at all.
48% of power generation in the US comes from coal.
Coal burned to create electricity is 38% efficient.
Seems quite a dent in your 80%, for sure 20 years in the future the numbers will be different but right now petrol power is still the most efficient available for cars. Also most European cars are much more efficient than your big gas guzzlers.
@weatherman
I don't claim to be an "enviro" I'm simply pointing out that the green dream doesn't apply to electric cars apart from a lessening of fumes in cities which is a pipe dream until our power all comes from renewable means.
@fourthletter my engine runs on rainwater, which is hard to collect effectively, so far I've been using some old mattresses on the roof of my duplex. I can squeeze about 18 gallons of water out 3 old mattresses, and that gets me about 4 miles per gallon, enough to get to work and back ( I'm a bed wetter ). Whenever a rainbow is outside though, oh man, it's like premium unleaded for my raincycle. The only down side is the steam, my God! The steam it puts off scorches children's faces as I blow by.
@nickyP
I hope you use a vapourizer for that weed, joints are like totally changing the climate man !
@fourthletter
Actually an EV even running in a coal dominated grid (actually not 48%, now just 45% and declining) is still cleaner than any gas car. You seem to be willing to run numbers so I'll run some.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
2003 RAV4 EV gets 27kWh/100miles city and 34kWh/100miles hwy.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/2008car1tablef.jsp?id=19296
You can find the average emissions of the US grid to be 1.329lbsCO2/kWh here (by putting in your zipcode you can also find your local emissions):
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/how-clean.html
A little bit of math: 34kWh/100miles * 1.329lbs CO2/kWh * 1/(90% grid efficiency) (actually a bit better than that, wikipedia says losses were 7.2% in 1995) = .502 lbs CO2/mile
With 19.4 lbs CO2/gal of gas, that's equivalent to a gasoline car with 48.7/38.6 mpg city/hwy
On the California grid, with 0.724lbs CO2/kWh, it is 89.4/70.9 city/hwy
In the same pre-2008 EPA ratings, the 2003 gasoline RAV4 got 25/31 city/hwy
A brand new 2010 Ford Escape hybrid gets 34/31 city/hwy
(engadget only allows 3 links, just go to fueleconomy (dot) gov)
The main reason is even with 38% plant efficiency (ignoring from a moment the huge pollution free 20% nuclear and much cleaner 24% natural gas contribution) and grid transport losses of ~90%, the EV drivetrain as a whole is 80% efficient (or more). In an ICE, efficiency is 20%, with higher losses for transmission (due to having a switchable multi-speed transmission vs a simple fixed reduction gear).
When you are talking about a grid like California's with a huge percentage made up from hydro, nuclear, or natural gas, you see great emissions savings even over a Prius.
@fourthletter 38% is for older fossil power plants, newer designs achieve almost 50% efficiency. Even so, they account for 48% of power plants, not 100%. Also, internal combustion engine average efficiency is only 18-20% (69camaroSS's 35% is around theoretical peak efficiency). Also, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_roadster#Petroleum-equivalent_efficiency and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Comparison_with_internal_combustion_engine_vehicles
@roponor
And again both you guys quote the efficiency of electric engines and the efficiency of power stations but you have to work out your efficiency for the power when it arrives at your outlet, after passing through the national grid.
But if everyone in California bought an electric car your power system would die very quickly.
@ariarinen "...Fiskar Karma has..."? Last I saw, the car doesn't exist, so it doesn't "have" anything.
@fourthletter Did you read the links? "The electricity generating system in the US loses 9.5% of the power transmitted between the power station and the socket". It's not that much.
Right now, it's impossible for everyone in California to by electric cars - that's simply to many cars, allright? :) As people switch to EV, more electric plants will be built - and those plants are gonna be the more efficient ones, or even working on renewable energy.
This is a smart move, because they loose their validity as a car manufactureer if they aren't producing a vehicle. There are plenty of start-up planning to build this or that, but Tesla saw it through to production.
That whole 2012 thing is all screwed up. The Universe actually quits in 2013. The big bang was a year late in the beginning, and eventually that will have caught up to us.
Nice, now I have two years to make 100 grand instead of one.
just as long as they bring out that model S
I just photographed an orange Tesla in the local Costco parking lot. Really cool car in person. License, California "A Tesla."
@Leicaman Teslas, Costco, Leicas? Where were you shooting pictures in Dubai?
@nickyP
No, he was shooting outside Goldman Sacks... :P
@nickyP
Nope, Carlsbad, CA. (North San Diego Co.)
The truth is we have no effect on the environment so you might as well drive what you like.
@Mr Pips - Maybe so, but there a lots of other good reasons to burn less, or no, gas, like letting OPEC dry up an blow away.
@Mr Pips With global warming comes dire consequences, but what isn't said is that in the short term future we'll have fiestas and more water parks, so... screw the grandchildren lets all go slip 'n'slide on our fiestas!
I'm here just for the pic.